The importance of color

Few things communicate your brand identity more than color.  To execute well at the OEM level, color stability is of paramount importance, especially to protect your intellectual property, copyrights, trademarks, and patents.  How do you make sure your Galactic Blue stays Galactic Blue throughout multiple facilities across the globe?  Ask how PTI can help implement and administer a Color Standard Program for your company, so you can control your colors to precise Delta E standards.  After all, if there's a single word that could best describe PTI's products, its Consistency.  We can help you bridge the gap between engineering and marketing, by carefully cultivating and curating your colors.

PTI is proud to offer this service to customers that use our powder coatings, as well as a stand-alone service for those who would wish to continue to utilize their current vendors.

 

Delta E and your color standards

In a nutshell, Delta E is a single number that states the distance between two different colors when using the CIELAB color space.  This is also known as CIE L*a*b*, or simply the "Lab color space". L* represents White / Black (or light and dark), a* is Green / Red, and b* is Blue / Yellow.  Your color will have a unique number that describes its place on the Lab color sphere.  For example, RAL 1023, Traffic Yellow, is generally known to have the numeric identifier of L* = 77.72, a*=11.28, b* = 93.94.  When comparing your known master color standard to a sample, the Delta E, or ∆E is calculated as follows:

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The untrained human eye can generally detect a difference in color of just over one Delta E unit, while a trained technician can typically discern a difference sub - one unit, depending on the color and the axis on which the shift occurs.  For example, in a bright red, if there is a color shift of over a unit and it occurs all the + Red axis, even 2 Delta E units of shift may not be noticeable to even the most discerning color eye. 

 

 
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Delta E color difference illustrated

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Implementation of PTI’s Color Standard Program

 

Whether you are an OEM or an applicator, if you are experiencing color drift across your product lines, we can help. Call or email us today and we can discuss the various implementation and administration options available for our Color Standard Program.